CHAPTER XVII.

HOW THE GREAT KAAN ENJOINETH HIS PEOPLE TO SUPPLY HIM

WITH GAME.

The three months of December, January, and February, during which the

Emperor resides at his Capital City, are assigned for hunting and

fowling, to the extent of some 40 days’ journey round the city; and

it is ordained that the larger game taken be sent to the Court. To be

more particular: of all the larger beasts of the chase, such as boars,

roebucks, bucks, stags, lions, bears, etc., the greater part of what

is taken has to be sent, and feathered game likewise. The animals are

gutted and despatched to the Court on carts. This is done by all the

people within 20 or 30 days’ journey, and the quantity so despatched

is immense. Those at a greater distance cannot send the game, but they

have to send the skins after tanning them, and these are employed in

the making of equipments for the Emperor’s army.{1}

NOTE 1.—So Magaillans: “Game is so abundant, especially at the

capital, that every year during the three winter months you see

at different places, intended for despatch thither, besides great

piles of every sort of wildfowl, rows of four-footed game of a

gunshot or two in length: the animals being all frozen and standing

on their feet. Among other species you see three sundry kinds

of bears ... and great abundance of other animals, as stags and

deer of different sorts, boars, elks, hares, rabbits, squirrels,

wild-cats, rats, geese, ducks, very fine jungle-fowl, etc., and all

so cheap that I never could have believed it” (pp. 177–178). As

this writer mentions _wild-cats_, we may presume that the “lions”

of Polo also were destined to be eaten.

[“Kubilai Khan kept a whole army, 14,000 men, huntsmen, distributed

in Peking and other cities in the present province of Chili

(_Yuen-shi_). The Khan used to hunt in the Peking plain from the

beginning of spring, until his departure to Shang-tu. There are in

the Peking department many low and marshy places, stretching often

to a considerable extent and abounding in game. In the biography

of _Ai-sie_ (_Yuen shi_, chap. cxxxiv.), who was a Christian, it

is mentioned that Kubilai was hunting also in the department of

Pao-ting fu.” (_Palladius_, p. 45.)—H. C.]